


Boys' True Confessions

by busaikko



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, First Time, Gay Male Character, Homophobia, M/M, Werewolf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-09
Updated: 2006-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-09 16:50:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate universe where. . . Myrtle?  Went on to sing for the Magic Mambo Moaners.  Tom?  Not so lucky, poor lad.  Charisma - yup.  Power - sure.  Parselmouth?  Oops.  It is now 1977 and a strange new world where Remus Lupin and Severus Snape find themselves reluctant roommates at university.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boys' True Confessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vibishan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibishan/gifts).



> **Warning:** reference made to teacher/17 y.o. student dubcon (non-explicit)
> 
> **Notes:** This was written for Vibishan, who asked for _ AU in which Voldemort does not exist. . . Marauder era happens as canon including the shack incident. Remus and Severus, as the two intellectuals, both get scholarships to the same wizarding college. . . By a sadistic quirk of fate, they are freshman roommates. Severus is furious. No Remus/Sirius, no previous feelings. Lots of fighting, LOTS of UST. . ._ She also asked for lots of kinks: I am sorry, this is about as kinky as this story would go!
> 
> **Art:** karasu_hime very kindly granted me permission to use her art within this story. Thank you! The covers were generated at http://www.glassgiant.com/romance/, a very addictive site. . . .

  
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"You can't make me share a room with him!" Severus said frantically. "He's a — a — "

The residence hall Warden raised one pencilled eyebrow.

"You must know what he is," Severus said, weakly.

The Warden did not blink.

Severus had worked like a demon to earn a place in the Wizards' university college. On the advice of his Head of House — and with full confidence in his native intelligence — he had applied for the Potions programme, and he'd been nothing but raw nerves until his NEWT results arrived, delivered by Slughorn personally. Severus had had the highest Potions score in Great Britain, and his acceptance letter had been written by the head of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers herself.Following the three-year course, Severus would be able to sit the exam for the Potions Advanced Diploma, which prior to the opening of the university college had been given only to those who had drudged for the better part of a decade in a Guildhall or brutal apprenticeship.

Three more years, and he would be free of the handicaps of his mixed birth and brutal upbringing. Three more years, and he would be able to choose his own destiny.He could live on the meagre government grant; he could spend ten-hour days in lecture halls and laboratories; he could eat the terrible meals and abide by the dress code and curfews and pointless rules and regulations.

Asking him to share a room with Remus Lupin was another matter entirely.

Severus leant forwards over the battered desk and attempted a look of earnest appeal. "He's already tried to kill me once. I can't be expected to share a room with him and give him another chance, now, can I?"

The Warden rummaged in the bottom drawer of her desk, affording Severus a good view of her bouffant hairstyle. He suspected that she had applied a Permanent Sticking Charm to it sometime before he was born: her hair did not move. There was a nasty squelching sound as she peeled something loose, and then she thrust a sticky pamphlet into his hands. _Facts and Fallacies About. . . The Equality in Magical Education Act!_.

"Your admission is contingent upon your acceptance of the Student Pledge to uphold the Act. That includes tolerance of your fellow students." She studied him over black cat's-eye lenses. "With new students arriving from Eastern Europe, this hall now houses fifty-eight. The goblins are four to a room. Believe me, Mr Snape," she said, pointing one magenta fingernail straight at Severus' chest, "we won't weep if you decide to leave."

Severus swallowed a mixture of bile and pride. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good boy." She smiled in a pleasant way that let him know he was dismissed.

* * *

"I know that there's a room shortage," Remus said, with a smile that he hoped conveyed his desire to cooperate with all reasonable demands. "But about my room assignment — ""No changes," the Warden said. "You did make it clear on your application that you did not wish your lycanthropy to be public." She frowned at Remus; he frowned back at her. He knew that there were other werewolves here; one was a lecturer on Transfiguration Theory. But he had no desire to be the grindstone for wearing off other students' prejudices. Everyone might have been strong-armed into signing the Student Pledge: that didn't mean it was safe to bare his secrets.

The university college had been started to give minority students a chance to gain equal footing with the more privileged. Remus had been surprised — shocked — to find that he was rooming with Severus Snape. He'd known Snape was a half-blood, but he hadn't thought, given the man's academic standing, that he'd want or need the formal qualification. He knew that _he_ needed at least a Certificate, or preferably a Diploma, to even be considered by a potential employer. He had his back to the wall, but the government had given him a place and a grant. He had confidence in his abilities: his was the second-highest Potions NEWT score in Great Britain, his acceptance letter had said. His father had had the letter framed and mounted over the mantelpiece.

He was going to keep his head down and study hard. He was in a place that at least paid lip-service to equality: he was going to get as far as he could in his three years.He was not looking forward to sharing his living space with Snape for the next year.

The Warden held up two fingers and waggled one. "Mr Snape is familiar with your condition." She waggled the other. "You both are starting the Potions programme, and will benefit from establishing, if not a personal, then a professional respect for each other. I suggest, Mr Lupin," she said, "that you learn to live with your differences.""Yes, ma'am," Remus said."Good boy." She smiled his dismissal, and he slunk out of the office feeling twelve years old.

* * *

Remus lowered his wand, studying the room's new layout."How about that, then?"

The two wardrobes had been levitated between the beds, the one at the far end facing Remus' bed and the nearer one facing Severus'. Their trunks continued the barrier down the centre of the room. The two desks were jammed against the walls at the foot of the beds. It looked like a prison to Severus, but at least they would have privacy in bed (as far as the knees). It dawned on Severus that he would have to _sleep_ in this room with Remus; the thought made him queasy. It wasn't like Slytherin House, where there was safety in numbers. There were only the two of them, and Remus — Remus was not any kind of friend, or ally, or even impartial observer.

"I won't hex you while you sleep," he said abruptly, "if you grant me the same."

Remus' face tightened. "Let us try," he said carefully, "to leave childishness in the past. I won't hex you at all."

"Good," Severus said.

"We're going to be seeing a lot of each other," Remus continued, even though Severus turned away from him and began Unpacking his trunk. "We'll be attending the same lectures and — what laboratory section are you in? I'm in F."

"C," Severus said, with some relief.

"Well, that's something," Remus said. He took two short boards from his trunk. "Are we allowed Sticking Charms on the walls?"

Severus levitated the bound volume of Rules and Regulations towards Remus with enough force that it made a sound as it struck Remus in the chest. Severus braced for some kind of retaliation, but Remus only gave him a flat, level stare before thumbing through the pages.

"Damn," Remus said. "No Sticking Charms, nails, screws, or brackets. I guess I do this the old-fashioned way."

Severus watched out of the corner of his eye as Remus levitated the first board against the wall behind his desk. He set some kind of charm on the ends of the board, which hovered obediently. Remus tested the board, standing up on his chair and leaning his weight on it. Satisfied, he repeated the process with the second board, and then walked back to survey his work.

Remus next took out what looked like all the required reading for the full three-year course, sorting the books by subject as he arranged them on the shelves. Severus tried not to look covetous.

"You're welcome to borrow anything you like," Remus said off-handedly. He'd finished with his books and was now arranging framed photos along the back of his desk.

In his frame, Sirius Black laughed — at Severus, it seemed.

"I'm sure the library is more than adequate," he snapped, and Remus' sidelong glance was amused.

"Yes, but _these_ books are _here_, not halfway across the city." He shrugged. "The books were a gift from my brother — well, they will be, if I earn my PAD. Otherwise, he says he'll make me pay him back."

"I didn't know you had a brother," Severus said, and then bit his tongue. He did not want to be given a tour of the Lupin family photos. He placated himself by considering that the more he knew about Lupin, the more power he would have over him.

"Step-brother, really," Remus said, with a vague pass of his hand at a studio portrait of about twenty Lupins: the family looked to be a major cause of the baby boom. Severus was not about to ask which of them was the brother. "He's almost fifteen years older than me — more like an uncle, really, than a brother. He's a cook, started working right after his OWLs. But I think he'd have liked to do Potions."

Severus made a noncommittal noise that he hoped conveyed his absolute lack of interest and used a charm to set the bedclothes. He had the same sheets and coverings that he'd been using for the past seven years. The fabric was soft in the way that predicted more rips, but it couldn't be helped. He'd no relatives to come forth with gifts. He'd had a little of his own money, but it had all gone towards purchasing clothes.

The university college was new, established within the last ten years, and was terrifically modern for an institution in the Wizarding World (though still quite backwards by Muggle standards). Like Hogwarts, there was a strict dress code: black trousers or pleated skirt (either in heavy wool), a white button-down shirt, and scholar's robes within the buildings where the magical courses took place. Flared trousers and heels over one inch were prohibited; curled hair was allowed provided a healer signed an affidavit that it was natural. From November until March, black cardigans were permitted.

Severus had still had to buy nearly everything new. During his years at Hogwarts, students expended great energy in rebelling against tradition (which mandated ankle-length corseted frocks for girls and tunics and hose for boys, worn under scratchy brown robes). It had not been uncommon at Hogwarts for students to go to class with nothing at all under their robes: the flash of bare ankle, or even bare feet, being a sign of coolness. Severus had failed miserably at being a rebel: he had never been brave enough to go _completely_ naked under his robes, instead wearing his underwear. Like a girl. As all the students had discovered.

He fit in now, he thought vindictively. He would never again be undressed or badly dressed before the judging eyes of the world. He _belonged_ here, he would _succeed_ here, and he felt that the expensive drape of fabric across his chest announced those facts.

He looked at Remus, whose cheap shirt was already wrinkled and whose trousers were shiny at the knees from too many pressing charms. There was no comparison.

He'd have enjoyed rubbing it in, except that he suspected that Remus wouldn't care. Damn it.

* * *

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* * *

The first month was hell.In retrospect, Severus supposed this was only natural. Students were gathered from all over Europe and had diverse educational backgrounds, and the instructors were all established experts in the field. There were bound to be clashes of titanic egos. But he could have lived without the Herbology lecturer who used only Latin in class or the three female Ukrainian students who wore their Veela-blonde hair in severe chignons and who had the most brilliant laboratory technique that Severus — and, apparently, his section head — had ever seen. Both his Toxins and his Antidotes instructors were appalled — incredulous — that he had not memorised all the readings for the first term even before the first lecture. He hadn't even _purchased_ all the texts until the day after he moved into the hall of residence. He brewed himself some Up All Night and went for close to two weeks on less than forty hours of sleep before the side effects caught up with him.

He would have hated to admit that Remus made his life bearable, but it really helped to have an absolute nightmare of a day and be able to come home to someone he could abuse with impunity. Remus, damn him, _had_ done all his reading over the summer months, and had enough free time to even manage Friday nights out with his friends. Severus conducted an in-depth study of the best way to get under Remus' skin: not surprisingly, he discovered that Remus was rather exquisitely sensitive to references to his humanity, or lack thereof. Remus was an idiot, and kept giving Severus second chances.

Severus would not let Remus forget for a minute what he was. At Hogwarts he might have been the pet of his dormitory, but he needed to learn his place in this room.

Remus insisted on trying to discuss their course work; Severus would _not_. He cut off a sally from Remus with a wave of his hand.

"That's only what I'd expect from someone who's — " Severus looked pointedly at the calendar — " barely three-fifths human today."

"Ad hominem arguments won't earn you your Diploma," Remus said calmly.

Severus sneered. "Were I actually talking to a _man_, Lupin," he breathed with silken smoothness.

Remus gave him a brilliant smile, as if he were a clever child — or a child who'd just been cleverly manipulated. Severus suspected the latter: Remus' eyes were still hard.

"Four years ago, the examining committee was headed by Louise Enbeens, the American vampire who invented the Blood-Replenishing Potion. Pholus Roan — the centaur — has served twice. No one in the world knows divinatory potions like he does, nor untraceable poisons. The head of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers is a quarter-blood, and rumour has it there's a giant in her family tree." Remus shrugged negligently. "Go ahead and vent your prejudices. I will enjoy watching you cut your own throat."

"Why on earth do you know that?" Severus asked, surprise derailing his train of thought. Remus blinked.

"You mean you _don't_?" There was something tooth-grindingly aggravating about Remus' smugness.

"What would be the point?" Severus snapped, and Remus shook his head in mock pity. He levitated a parchment onto Severus' desk and dipped his quill in his inkpot.

Remus cast a remote-writing spell and began sketching an elaborate diagram in the air. "This is last year's committee — five professionals, all highly respected in their national guilds." Severus watched as the lines on the parchment resolved into wicked caricatures. "The Society Head, of course. Her field is Sleeping Draughts and potions for mental disorders. Very traditional brewing methods. Conservative. Her son was in Ravenclaw three years above us." Remus' quill worked around the second face, and then the third, filling in details until the parchment was black with writing. Finished, he charmed his quill clean and then used red ink to draw compass-perfect circles around two sketches. "I predict that we will be examined by these two." He cast a lazy blotting spell. "Know your enemy, Snape. Knowledge is power."

Severus was stung. He ought to have considered the matter of examiners long before. "I suppose you know who all the werewolves are."

Remus' smile was tight. "All the werewolves, and all those with lycanthropes in the family. And all those working on potions to relieve or cure the condition, or who think we ought to be locked up, or sterilised, or killed." He shrugged. "If you are looking for like-minded bigots, I can give you a list of names. Who knows, you might make some new friends."

"I'm not a bigot," Severus said stiffly.

"Ah?" Remus said, one shade short of calling Severus a liar as well.

"I just don't like you."

Remus paused, his head cocked to one side. "You don't like me, and you'll use any ammunition against me that you can? If I weren't a werewolf, it'd be my freckles?"

Severus snorted. "What matters is what you are. You're my enemy. Your best friends made my life hell for years, and you — at best — did nothing. If I wanted to feel charitable towards you — which I don't, for the record — I would assume that they blackmailed you."

"No," Remus said, very softly. "They didn't."

"I never said I thought so." Severus smirked. "Do you want me to stop treating you like an animal? Then I'll treat you as though you are shallow and a coward."

Remus paused as if he were actually considering this, and then nodded, once. "That's acceptable."

"Coward," Severus spat. "Spineless follower."

Remus shrugged. "Facts are facts, but opinions change."

* * *

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* * *

With both magic and personal jibes now off limits, the atmosphere in the room became insidiously warlike, and their studies became pitched battles. Skirmishes were fought over dinner and continued in their room, where they oscillated between the esoterically academic to the insultingly self-aggrandizing. This mounting antagonism did wonders for their studies. Remus was the first to score higher on an essay than the Ukrainians. Severus was goaded by the burn of shame into perfecting a new technique for the chopping of devil's tongue that made it more palatable in Lightening Draughts. All the students in the other sections were asked to use the Snape Method. He hoped this gave Remus indigestion.By the end of the first month, Severus found he _enjoyed_ university. Nothing here could kill him; it would only make him stronger. He had adjusted to the high altitude. He could relax.

When Remus left for his first monthly visit home, Severus indulged what he thought of as his one guilty pleasure. He took out the battered copy of Flobberfarmer Weekly that lived under a pile of spare parchments in the desk drawer, brought it over to the bed, and carefully removed the concealing enchantment. He sat with his back in the corner and his pillow over his lap, and spread the pages of Boys' True Confessions before him.

Severus had stolen the magazine from the Hogsmeade newsagents in his sixth year, having heard — in the way that one _does_ hear — what it was. The magazine was only sixteen pages and used blurry printing charms that made the lettering look out of focus and gave the line drawings of Real Readers Just Like You! a soft charcoal-like smudginess, but he knew that possessing it was dangerous. The first floor boys' bathroom — past the Charms classroom — was haunted by the vengeful spirit of Mad Tom, who'd been Petrified to death when Severus' mother had been a student. Severus had discovered that if he brought Sir Hiss (the Slytherin House mascot) with him, Mad Tom would curl up with the python for hours: the ghost was apparently under the delusion that he spoke Parseltongue. Severus had made the back stall of the bathroom his private potions laboratory; it had seemed the natural place to hide out with Boys' True Confessions.

He had originally been baffled. At first glance, the magazine was the antithesis of what he had been seeking. He was full of questions and devoured the editors' responses to each True Confession with increasing frustration. The answers never _answered_: they were a litany of bland advice.

_Play more sports, study hard, get eight hours of sleep, don't overindulge, keep your wand polished and your robes tidy_.

He had been on the verge of binning it in frustration; then he happened to read his first True Confession.

_Dear True Confessions Magazine: I never thought I would be writing to you, but I can't talk to anyone, and I am desperate. I am a sixth-year student at R—- School of Magic. I am five foot seven inches tall and am a Beater on my House team. I have red hair. My wand is eleven inches and made of linden. I have always been popular, but — _   
_All my mates have girlfriends, but True Confessions, I don't know how to talk to girls. I know I'm supposed to want to touch them, but the only person I want to touch is my team's Keeper, and, True Confessions, he's a boy. . ._   
_ Please Help Me! Sincerely yours, Caught by Keeper_

Severus read the whole magazine, every word, even the advertisements and the publishing information. At least half the True Confessions were like Caught by Keeper's; two even suggested that Things had happened (one, in a broom cupboard, and the other, under a table during a particularly boring lecture in Applied Muggle Suction Techniques).

Severus never paid attention to the answers again; he realised that they were a red herring. The real answer, the real message was between the lines. _You are not alone. Somewhere, there are Real Boys - Just Like You!_.

He had the magazine for nearly half a year before he worked up the courage to masturbate to it: he felt closer to the writers than to the boys in his dorm, and it seemed. . . rude. The first time, he chose Sullied in Salford, a _willowy blond from a Pureblood family_, because he wasn't that fond of Sullied to begin with. If wanking took away Sullied's charm, it wouldn't be a great loss.

As it happened, he discovered that he felt an even closer connection. Soon, he had intimate relations going with all the True Confessors. His favourites changed over the years. Occasionally he grew bored and considered stealing another copy, but in the end he always stayed with his printed harem. It was a routine that he enjoyed. Especially now that Remus was gone.

Severus flipped slowly through the pages, waiting for the spark of interest to hit. He passed over Giles the bus conductor, Marcus the exchange student, and the annoyingly handsome and athletic Lars and Asa. His eyes finally stopped on Thomas, the one picture that was neither smiling nor soulful. Thomas had _long straw-coloured hair that I cut myself_ and glowered up at Severus from the cheap paper, his chin raised defiantly. Thomas had been in Muggle borstal; Thomas wanted to travel to New York City.

Severus set the magazine and the pillow aside and lay down, opening his trousers and shoving his shirt up. He shut his eyes and tried to imagine what the rest of Thomas looked like as he brought himself to orgasm efficiently, one hand touching his nipples and the other stroking himself. He sprawled there in the aftermath, panting, and enjoyed the silence and solitude. He wished he could do this whenever he wanted; he wished Remus out of his room. With a sigh, he cleaned up, charmed his clothes back to perfection, and headed down for dinner.

He masturbated once more before falling asleep (Ian, this time). He looked at the magazine by moonlight and found it doubly pleasurable for knowing that somewhere Remus was going through hell.

* * *

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* * *

The rest of the autumn term passed in much the same dizzying cycle of classes that split Severus' head apart with an overload of knowledge and the inevitable debates with other hall residents in which that knowledge was wielded, weapon-wise. Severus learnt Remus' schedule by heart and wrung from it small parcels of free time: an hour on Monday when their laboratory schedules did not overlap, half an hour before breakfast on Wednesdays when Remus had greenhouse duties, the occasional Thursday afternoon, and of course the day or two out of each month when Remus was a slavering monster.One wet Thursday mid-December, Severus made two mistakes. The first was a mistake of trust: he ought not to have relied on schedules. Remus threw open the door a mere fifteen minutes after leaving for Advanced Laboratory Safety. He dropped his books on the desk, shed his coat, and turned to Severus with an incipient grin.

"Liu's left for the Black Forest — the transient truffles are swarming, so no class this week."

Severus glared, and Remus tipped his head for a better view of the magazine spread out before him. Severus slapped his hand down over the freckled face of the page eleven boy. Mistake number two.

"What's that?" Remus asked, and summoned the magazine with a casual flick. His eyebrows climbed as he looked at the cover, and he gave Severus an amused look. "Boys' True Confessions, Snape?"

There was a faint superiority to Remus' smile that made Severus suddenly and entirely lose his mind to the rage that had been building on the edge of his consciousness since the term started. He bypassed magic, throwing himself bodily on top of Remus and locking his hands around Remus' throat.

He remembered later, as he counted his bruises, that Remus had put Sirius Black in the Hospital Wing following the Incident sixth year, and that Black's teeth had regrown crooked and were crooked still. He had wondered then if Remus possessed an inhuman power, but now he himself was equally possessed.

Remus was stronger than Severus and soon had him on his back, but Severus had no reservations about using all the violent tricks he'd learnt as a child. He ripped out fistfuls of hair, kneed Remus in the balls (Remus snapped his head down at this, and the impact of his skull crushed Severus' nose), and twisted Remus' fingers out of joint where they held him down.

The fight didn't end, it simply slowed down. Finally, Remus rolled off to the side, breathing heavily through his bloody mouth. Severus felt a rush of muzzy triumph, despite not being quite able to sit up yet. Remus pushed himself up on one elbow, held up his hand, and summoned his wand.

"Hold still," Remus said, looking at Severus with something like drunken fondness. Severus realised a beat too late what Remus was doing when he felt his nose reform in a warm tingle of magic.

"Make it smaller while you're at it," he said, and Remus grinned, taking up Severus' hand and mending the ripped fingernails. It felt almost like friendship, and Severus had to shove Remus away to remind himself that friendship was what it was _not_. "Get off me. Animal."

Remus' face hardened, but he shrugged as if it were of no interest or import. He summoned Severus' wand and dropped it on his chest with a desultory flick of his wrist and a scornful look. They avoided looking at each other as they healed injuries and repaired clothes (there wasn't much Remus could do about the hairless spot above his forehead: Severus watched as he looked at it in the mirror and opened his mouth as if to make a joking comment — but then remembered, and kept silent).

Remus swore, suddenly, and knelt in a way that suggested he was still in pain. He tugged the ragged remains of Boys' True Confessions out from under Severus' bed. It looked as if they had been literally fighting over it: pages fell away like dead leaves when Remus picked it up, the binding spell broken. Severus saw with a pang that the page seven boy (_I know he's my brother's best mate, but — _) had been ripped clear in half.

"You want it that much, you can have it, Lupin," Severus sneered, transfiguring loss into an anger that sustained him for the next few weeks. Remus was quiet; he had apologised, once, and Severus had rebuffed him with exquisite cruelty. The room was blessedly quiet, with no distracting conversation, but there was a singing tension in the air that made concentration nearly impossible. When they were turned out of the hall for the holiday, Severus didn't even say goodbye. Christmas would be a full-moon day this year, and he hoped the wolf chewed hell out of Remus Lupin. He hoped Remus would rip his own damn throat out.

* * *

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* * *

Severus had hoped to be the first back to the room, but Remus was already there when he arrived. Severus ignored him as he set about returning his clothes to the wardrobe and Unpacking the forty-odd books that he'd taken home for light reading. He was aware of Remus shutting his book and putting his quill away, but the idea that it had anything to do with him was. . . absurd."I've something for you," Remus said, and Severus gave him a cool, flat stare. "Here."

Remus held out a copy of Boys' True Confessions. The cover was pale blue instead of dingy taupe; otherwise it could have been the same as Severus'.

"Keep it," Severus said tersely, pointedly not reaching for the magazine. He hoped that it wasn't an attempt at placation or some bizarre gesture related to the holiday. A world where Remus Lupin bought him presents was not a world worth living in.

"There's something in here you should read," Remus said, and set it on top of Severus' poisons text. "Page eight."

"Goodness, Lupin, I'd never have suspected that you got off on schoolboy confessions as well. We're just the room of perverts, aren't we?"

"Page eight," Remus repeated. "Look at the date."

Severus looked, making sure that Remus saw that he did so grudgingly and resentfully.

"May, 1976."

Remus retreated to sit cross-legged on his bed, as if his point had been made. Severus was confused, but worse still, now he was curious. Finally, he yanked the magazine over and opened it with almost enough force to rip it. But not quite.

_Dear True Confessions Magazine: I don't know what to do. There's a boy in my school and everyone hates him especially my mates and everyone says he doesn't like girls, which is something else my mates rag him for, only this time they tricked me into nearly killing him. I mean, really killing him. I don't know how to tell them to stop, every time I try they want to know why I'm defending him and what is he my boyfriend, and what they don't know is that I don't like girls either. I'm an attractive brunet with bottle-green eyes and a sensitive jaw and not unpopular, but I swear if they ever find out I'll kill myself, but I'm not going to kill anyone else either, please help me. Sincerely yours, Torn Apart_

Severus shut the magazine, then opened it and read the letter through again. "I am glad," he said finally, "that someone beat grammar into you. This is really _appallingly_ bad writing. Not to mention your sensitive jaw."

"They put those bits in because the magazine's for beating off," Remus said distantly. "Sensitive jaw implies a certain expertise at fellatio, don't you think? The illustration sort of hints at that on-the-knees look. Thank the gods it looks nothing like me."

Severus winced. He had expended enough sperm over Boys' True Confessions over the years that he disliked hearing its secrets bared. "What am I supposed to get out of this, Lupin? I _know_ that you were just the pathetic follower of your friends and that you never intended to eat me, but you still got yourself into that position." He snorted and looked at the picture again, but now he saw Remus as the boy, drawn from the shoulders up, looking up at the artist with soulful, sorrowful earnestness. It almost made him cringe on Remus' behalf. "So, _do_ you have a certain expertise at fellatio?" he asked, trying to offend, because he knew that Remus was attempting to confess or atone or both.

Remus laughed, which was unexpected, but it was more bitter than amused. "Fuckall," he said. "You?"

Severus shrugged and looked back down at the cheap glossy cover of the magazine. "A bit. At school."

Remus looked surprised, then thoughtful — almost as if, Severus decided, he were running a list of names through his head. "Really? After what happened to Alex Freely — I'm surprised you found anyone willing to risk it." He paused. "A girl?"

"Not a girl. Not a student," Severus added, and Remus' eyebrows shot up. "You needn't look so shocked, Lupin. It was a reasonable arrangement for an ambitious half-blood." Remus looked even more pained at that: he opened, then shut his mouth. "Never mind," Severus said.

"How old were you?" Remus asked, with a sort of underlying urgency.

Severus tilted his head as if he needed a moment to recall. "After third-year, Friday teas tended to devolve into either an appreciation of Classical statuary or Quidditch players. Nothing untoward, Lupin."

Remus' face clouded a little. "But he touched you," he said, half a question.

Severus rubbed one potion-stained fingertip over the letters: _True Confessions_. "A couple of times, seventh year."

"Bastard," Remus said, and the hatred in his voice made Severus blink. "Bastard. You could destroy him. He deserves it."

"What does it matter to you?" Severus asked, half-turning in his chair to look at Remus fully. Remus' chin was down, and his jaw — far too square to be considered sensitive — was set. "You hate me." Remus' eyes flashed up at that: not green, but a shifting kind of ocean blue.

"I don't," Remus said, as calmly as if it were fact. At the same time, Severus realised that the damned magazine was making him look at Remus as if he were — as if he were someone who could be lusted after. "We have a history of rubbing each other the wrong way, but we're getting over that, bit by bit."

Severus snorted. "So, you think it's time we rubbed each other the _right_ way?"

Remus laughed, and Severus realised his unintended double entendre with a frisson of terror. More so, when Remus, still smiling, raised one eyebrow and said, as if he were proposing a prank, "Don't _you_? What do you say, Snape — your bed or mine?"

"Yours," Severus said automatically, palms starting to sweat. He remembered, suddenly, all the things he'd tried so hard to forget about their fight. The press of Remus' body against his own, the way Remus had touched him afterwards. He looked at Remus: had Remus been haunted by the same memories? "Just once. Just — to see."

"To see what?" Remus asked, muffled by the jumper he pulled over his head and tossed onto his desk.

"I want to see you," Severus said, locking the door and casting a muffling charm. Up until the very moment he sat down on Remus' bed and Remus began, very quietly, to undo the buttons on Severus' shirt, he still suspected that it was all an elaborate trap. That Remus would take everything he had given and use it all for his amusement, and the amusement of his friends. But Remus was looking at him with the same brilliant concentration that he usually turned on elaborate alchemical solutions, as if Severus were something that he had to get just right. Remus, Severus realised, was just as scared of him as he was of Remus. Knowing that, he was able to breathe properly again.

Remus finished with the buttons and pushed Severus' shirt off his shoulders, letting his hands slide with the fabric down to the stubborn cuffs. He unbuttoned the cuffs and tossed the shirt after his jumper. He pressed the palm of one hand against Severus' stomach briefly; the heat of it lingered in the cotton of Severus' vest even after Remus' hand was removed.

Remus added his shirt to the growing pile on the desk. He hadn't been wearing a vest; the room was cool enough despite the warming charm that his nipples tightened against the air.

"Well," Remus said, looking up but not as far as Severus' eyes. "Now what do we do?"

"Lie down," Severus said. Remus snorted, and then grabbed him and pulled him down.

It wasn't like fighting this time; more like wrestling, Severus thought. Remus' touch was rough and shy, and he seemed not to know what to do with his own body, much less Severus'. Severus rubbed Remus' nipples the way he did his own, and Remus grabbed his hips and shifted so that they rubbed against each other. Severus did not want to come yet. He twisted, trying to get his trousers open, and Remus copied him, shoving pants and trousers down and off. Remus stroked his own cock slowly, looking up at Severus, and then wrapped his hand around Severus' cock as if he were afraid it would break, or explode, or something. Severus swore and grabbed Remus' for a hands-on demonstration of how he liked to be touched. It was awkward and frightening and Severus _did not_ want to come before Remus, he refused, he held back as long as he could –

and then Remus' teeth snapped shut and his face twisted as if in pain, and Severus heard himself cry out as Remus' hand pulled him over the edge of orgasm. It was good, better than good, Severus was flying and falling and he could feel Remus beside him panting for breath and burning hot. The realisation of how much of his skin was pressed against Remus reminded Severus that he couldn't relax and enjoy the afterglow. He sat up and grabbed Remus' wand to Vanish the mess.

"Thank you," Remus said hoarsely, and Severus scowled that he had automatically cleaned Remus up as well.

He looked down and examined the terrible, patched-looking scar on Remus' hip. Remus flinched, slightly, when he ran his fingers over the thickened tissue: not, Severus thought, because it hurt — he doubted the scar had any sensation at all — but because it was the heart of Remus' secret.

"How old were you?" he asked, and Remus' eyes on him narrowed.

"Eight," Remus muttered. "Hand me my trousers, would you?"

"It's not a _surprise_ to me, you know," Severus said, fishing Remus' trousers off the floor. "I know you're a werewolf. I've _seen_ you as a werewolf."

Remus took the trousers and slipped them on whilst still lying down, hitching his arse up to pull them over his hips. "You see me as a werewolf."

Severus sighed in frustration. "You _are_ a werewolf." He got off the bed and sorted his clothes from Remus', took them over to his own bed, and dressed quickly.

Remus watched him, his face shuttered. "Forget it." He sat up, trousers gaping seductively. "So. What did you think?"

Severus shrugged. "I came. I saw." He picked up Remus' issue of Boys' True Confessions and carried it over to set on Remus' desk.

"That it, then?" Remus said.

"That's it."

"Okay." Remus got up, tugging on the belt loops of his trousers to keep them from falling. He took up the magazine, folded it in half, and dropped it into the bin. With a flick of his wand, it burst into flames: bright orange flames, because of the cheap ink.

"Why did you do that?" Severus asked as Remus banished the last of the smoke.

Remus dropped into his chair and bit his lip. "It had served its purpose. And it was a dangerous thing to leave lying around."

"You're not going to be. . . any stranger than usual, are you?" Severus asked, and Remus gave him an opaque look.

"Why, because I enjoyed getting you off? Don't worry. We're equals, you and I," Remus said. "No strings attached. No compulsions."

"Right," Severus said, but his emotions reacted like a supersaturated solution of carbon dioxide in water brought suddenly to atmospheric pressure. With sugar added. He found himself hard pressed not to smile foolishly; his face flushed, and Remus gave him a rather odd look.

_I'm happy_, Severus thought, finally finding the name for the emotion. _Who would have thought?_

* * *

For the rest of the month, they insulated themselves with scrupulous politeness and vicious academic arguments. Severus needed to think, and despite it being hard to think when his brain conjured images of touching, stroking, licking, and otherwise molesting Remus, it would have been even harder to think had he actually engaged in any of these activities.Remus left for his monthly visit home, and Severus found the room strangely empty. He supposed it came from not having True Confessions to look forward to anymore. He debated a visit to the common room, but it was invariably occupied by a dense mass of Advanced Muggle Studies students practicing billiards and darts and smoking cheap fags. In the end he decided to commit the proofs for Florinbaum's Eighteen Equations of Transmutation to memory, working until he could no longer keep himself awake. There were books on his bed, and he couldn't be arsed to tidy up. He stumbled across the room to fall onto Remus' bed for a fitful rest.

His wand woke him as always at seven, and he dressed, ate, and Apparated across the city for the day's lectures. When he arrived back in the hall he was sure he looked as bad as he felt, unwashed hair lank and eyes bruised with sleeplessness. The room's curtains were drawn; Remus was sleeping in his bed.

"You're in my bed," Severus said, dropping his bag on the floor, stepping out of his shoes, and hanging his trousers and shirt over the back of his chair.

"You slept in mine," Remus said, not moving.

"Budge over, then," Severus said. "I'm knackered."

Remus made room for him. The bed was warm, and Remus warmer, and Severus was lost to sleep in the space of a breath.

Severus woke hungry in the dark. Remus was curled naked at his side, breathing softly, one arm draped over Severus' stomach. Severus ran his hand tentatively down Remus' back, down the bumps of vertebrae to the slight hollow just above Remus' arse. He didn't dare go further, not when Remus was defenceless; that was important, though he couldn't have articulated why. He sighed and rolled out of the bed."Stay," Remus said, very softly.

"I need a shower, and dinner."

"Breakfast." Remus sat up and stared at Severus; or Severus thought he did, though everything was in silvery shadow. "Mind if I join you? For the shower, and the food."

Severus said all right, which was how he ended up with his back against the freezing tiles of the shower stall in the moonlight as Remus knelt before him and — very gingerly — took his cock in his mouth, one hand stroking him slickly and the other splayed against the wall. The foremost thought in his mind was that he mustn't collapse and bash his head in, because it would be a terrible way to die, and if he didn't die, the humiliation of explaining his concussion to the Healer would be even worse. Warding off the collapse was hard because his legs were — his _whole body_ was shaking with the effort to keep everything inside. The bathroom echoed, the falling water like a train in a tunnel, and the fast wet slap of Remus' hand was too loud.

Remus' tongue made no sound as it stroked and caressed its way around the thick shaft of Severus' cock, but he blamed it anyway for the noises that he had to hold in with his own hand, pressed against his mouth. His other hand was tangled in Remus' hair. He had enough vestigial sense left to not shove Remus' head down, but the effort was excessive. His head fell back into the stream of the water as he came, and he breathed in water in great gasps. He might have passed out, for a moment. The next thing he recalled was being whacked on the back by Remus, who was irate and shivering wet. Severus spat up water, and Remus got up to fetch the towels.

His near asphyxiation conveniently put off — for the moment — the matter of reciprocation. Severus went back to their room first; when Remus returned a few minutes later he smelt of mint toothpaste. Severus had the lamp lit, and he saw for the first time the dark bruises that mottled Remus' skin. Remus' left shoulder was swollen in a way that suggested the recent healing of a broken bone, or perhaps a dislocation. Remus noticed him looking, tightened his jaw, and opened his wardrobe.

"Give me that," Severus said, and plucked Remus' shirt from his hand. "It's a good thing you don't wear vests."

"Yes," Remus said, standing still as Severus eased his left arm into the sleeve and held the shoulders straight while Remus obediently put his right arm through. "They're too hot. I'm hot," he added. "Werewolves are."

"Mm." Severus held the button placket together in the front but stopped short of actually doing up the buttons. "Didn't Applewick use fluctuations in daily body temperature in developing her Standard?"

"Amongst other things." Remus looked at Severus then. His eyes looked just as battered as his body was, just as naked and vulnerable. "I needed to feel human again," he said, swallowing convulsively. "I — "

Severus pulled forward on the placket and pressed his mouth to Remus'. He hoped, rather desperately, that Remus had more experience with kissing than he did (one Hufflepuff, on a dare, and a drunken Goyle cousin under the mistletoe).

Remus sighed, all warmth and mint against Severus' lips. He tilted his head, neatly evading the nose problem, and suddenly Severus felt the definitely odd sensation of Remus' tongue tracing the line of his lips. _I know where that tongue's been,_ he thought, although the thought made his breathing speed up instead of repelling him. He snuck a glance at Remus through his eyelashes and went instantly hot when he realised that Remus was watching him. The mouth against his curved in a smile and pressed insistently and hungrily against his own. Remus thrust his tongue into Severus' mouth, and Severus bit him automatically: not hard enough to draw blood, but enough that Remus was caught. Remus made a noise, and Severus realised that what had been rubbing his leg wasn't Remus' hand but his cock, hard and hot against the fabric of his trousers. Wet, too, he discovered, sliding one hand down Remus' bare chest to wrap around it.

Remus said something and pulled back.

"What?" Severus asked, not particularly wanting to think or talk.

"Bed," Remus said, manoeuvring Severus to the side and back, so that when he sank down on the bed Severus fell mostly on top of him.

"Sorry," Severus muttered, trying to move to the side, but Remus wound a hand in his hair and pulled him down to continue the kiss. Remus put his hand over Severus', making him squeeze harder and move faster. Remus' kiss became wet and desperate, and then he twisted away, the arch of his back as he came thrusting his bare chest up against Severus.

Remus lay, breathing erratically, with one forearm thrown over his eyes and his shirt wrinkled around him: somehow, the shirt made him look more debauched than if he'd been naked.

"I'm still hungry," Severus said after a minute, and Remus lowered his arm to stare at him intensely. "You'll need to make up the lessons you missed. You may use my notes," he added, and Remus smiled slowly.

* * *

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* * *

"Are you going out?" Severus asked as they walked down the corridor that led from the lecture hall to the Toxins Laboratory."Hm?" Remus said. He still looked startled when Severus spoke to him in public, though lately the look that followed the startlement was not wariness but a slight, sated curl to his mouth that likely no one but Severus noticed. Severus did not look at him purposefully. It would not do to smile at each other in public. Ever.

"Friday," Severus said. "Are your friends taking you out?"

"Peter wants to see the Fall on the tenth," Remus said. "I'll probably not make it back before curfew." He paused. "I know you weren't asking out of idle curiosity, because you don't. But I'm also that sure you weren't planning any festivities yourself."

"What the fuck do you know?" Severus said, and was pleased that Remus was distracted for the next two hours, shooting him little perplexed glances.

"I apologise," Remus said, catching up to Severus afterwards in a rush of fluttering robes and hastily-grabbed parchments. "What I said — it was uncalled for."

"We have bad habits," Severus said, and tucked his chin in to look at Remus because he knew that shadowed his eyes. "You and I."

"Which we are breaking. Which we want to break." Severus had always thought Remus weak, and perhaps he had been. But when he spoke now it was without any wistfulness or pleading; bare statement, with steel beneath.

"Your friends don't approve," Severus said softly, testing for weaknesses anyway.

"My friends," Remus said slowly, torturing the words into developing new syllables. It amused Severus that Remus felt more and more comfortable speaking his native dialect with him. "My friends cannot tell me that I may not be friends with anyone else, nor that I may not spend time with them."

Remus shrugged, and Severus wondered how far he could push to test this — but he suspected that it would be the person challenging Remus who would break the friendship. He was not. . . quite prepared to go that far. It occurred to him that the Black-Potter-Pettigrew triumvirate might feel the same way about him, reining in their dislike for the sake of Remus' friendship. The neat way Remus balanced their forces against each other was nearly Slytherin.

"After dinner," Severus said. Remus nodded and was gone; Severus' robes snapped in the rush of displaced air.

Dinner was flavourless and interminable: Severus wanted and didn't want to go back to his room, so over pudding he went head to head with the German goblin about the use of acids in alchemy. After half an hour he felt considerably sharper and able to have what he refused to think of as his first deliberate conversation with Remus.

It helped, though he would never admit it, that when he came into the room, Remus shut the book he'd been reading and rose to his feet instantly. It helped that Remus kissed him and touched him and handed him a beer and didn't say anything until they were seated on Severus' bed, side by side.

"So," Remus said. "Friday. Do you _want_ me to stay here? I will, if — ."

"Wait," Severus said. He paused, and then leant over to yank open his top desk drawer. "Here." He handed the December issue of Boys' True Confessions to Remus, who looked bemused.

"I thought we'd moved beyond this," Remus said, flipping through the pages idly.

"I think I've found a solution to our problem," Severus said, making the magazine fall open to page sixteen and pointing to one of the advertisements.

Very shortly after they had realised that whatever they were doing was an addictive habit and not an aberration, the issue of sex — _real_ sex, Remus had said, even his ears turning red — had come up. The Rules and Regulations were very clear that "assignations in the Hall, and expressly in students' private rooms, will result in immediate eviction and academic repercussions."

Remus had done some clandestine research and made a map of all the monitoring spells in effect (a skill he confessed to learning at Hogwarts). After a week of observing (or rather, spying on, Severus thought) the other students' activities they realised that — no matter that it was little different to wanking — what they were doing _now_ skirted dangerously close to offences punishable by both university and law.

_So we'll go somewhere_ Severus had said (rather desperately, with Remus' head between his thighs). The only problem was _where_.

"A social club?" Remus said. "That sounds. . . dodgy."

Severus shrugged. "There's a Muggle telephone number encoded in the drinks list. I rang. The woman I spoke with was very. . . helpful. There's a meeting — more like a party –once a month. These are wizards," he added, with emphasis. "They know about the risks from the Ministry. They have portkeys for emergencies."

"She told you all of this over the phone?" Remus said, dubiously. Severus looked at his beer. Remus jabbed him with an elbow.

"We met," Severus said. "For coffee. Just once. She's a trans."

"A what?"

Severus curved one hand in the air in over his chest. "She used to be a boy, transfigured herself tits."

Remus looked appalled. "People do that?" he asked, his voice dropping.

"What rock have you been living under?" Severus sniffed. Remus need never know how shocked he had been when the willowy girl in platform sandals and shaggy platinum hair had dropped into the chair opposite him. "They're not that big, her tits. But she'd never have carried off the frock without."

"Never mind me," Remus said, pulling up his knees and hiding his face between.

"No one's going to give _you_ tits, Lupin. Grow up." He snorted. "Though it'd be amusing at that time of month — you might end up a bitch."

"Oh, fuck you very much," Remus said, but the words lacked the sharp edge that would have started one of their battles back in September. He raised his head just enough to look at the advertisement again.

_Looking to unwind after the rigours of the week? Relax and enjoy pleasant conversation with like-minded boys like you!_

"She said they have a back room," Severus said off-handedly. "For — you know. Speaking of fucking you very much."

Remus elbowed him again, hitting the same spot with enough force to bruise. "Friday?" he asked, still not looking at Severus.

"Mm." Severus finished his beer and set the bottle carefully on the desk. "Friday."

"Okay," Remus said, and turned sideways to put one arm across Severus' shoulders and start kissing his way down the line of Severus' jaw.

"I need to shave," Severus said, and Remus laughed and kissed at the same time, running his tongue over the roughness of stubble.

"I like it," he said, the words settling hot on Severus' skin. "I like how you taste." Remus put a hand to Severus' cheek and kissed him. Remus tasted like cheap beer, but Severus supposed he didn't mind.

There was a sharp, low rap at the door.

Severus banished the magazine and yanked the door open, but Remus was faster; when the goblin marched in, full of vitriol and dragging a sack of German potions journals, Remus was seated at his desk with four books before him and two open pots of ink, exuding studiousness and ire.

Severus was torn between wanting to force the goblin to recognise the great strides made in research in the past five years and the desire to lose the argument quickly and make Remus lick him again. He was still waffling thirty minutes later when Remus turned around with an evil gleam in his eyes and sent three books over, open to passages that knocked holes in the foundation of the goblin's reasoning.

The goblin borrowed all three and made himself scarce. Remus leant back and laughed.

"You know he won't sleep all night now," Severus said. "He's got a brain like a Pensieve. You'll be the one in trouble once he's digested all that data."

"I'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow," Remus said, stretching and twisting so that his shoulders popped loudly. "Right now — it must be nearly lights out." He looked at Severus. "I'm knackered. I can finish this — " he nodded at his desk — "in the morning."

"Go get ready for bed, then," Severus said, indifferently, as he tidied his own desk.

"Join me. . . after?"

"I might," Severus said, and Remus whistled under his breath as he headed for the washroom.

* * *

____spacer____

* * *

Severus watched Remus dance and smirked. He would have said Remus danced badly — which he did — except that whatever Remus had been sampling from the Potions bar seemed to have stripped away any awkward self-consciousness. Remus danced as if he wanted to be fucked. Severus didn't mind. That was why they were here."Once he comes off his high he'll be out for hours," an amused voice purred in Severus' ear. "Cocktail?"

DeAnna held out a goblet trailing blue smoke. Severus had a fairly good idea of what was in it and shook his head: unlike Remus, he liked his inhibitions where they were. She shrugged, her tiny sequined top moving in a hypnotically serpentine fashion over her very real-looking tits.

"If you go on back to the room and grab a mattress, I'll send the boy in."

"I can — " Severus said, and DeAnna pinched his arm. It stung, slightly."It's his first time? I should talk to him," DeAnna said, winking on the word _talk_, and Severus tried not to blush. Perhaps he should have had something to drink.

"Yes, miss," Severus said, standing on unexpectedly unsteady legs. DeAnna slapped him on the arse, which was strangely comforting.

The back room was steamy and hot and reeked of sex. There were two candles in sconces by the door, but most of the light in the room seemed to be reflected off sweating bodies. Severus looked for a place in the corners, but settled for the only free mattress, next to a trio who seemed to be moaning in Russian. At least the sheet was clean, he thought; one of the advantages to magic. He took off his clothes, folded them, and tucked them under the mattress along with his wand.

Remus, when DeAnna escorted him in, had left his shirt somewhere and was walking very unsteadily.

"Do you have _any_ idea — " Remus said, sounding indignant, but Severus kissed him and pulled him down and removed Remus' trousers and pants all at once. Remus was no help at all, trying to touch and then to lick as much of Severus' body as possible.

The room was too hot, the air too close. Severus managed to get the condom on without botching it too badly and was glad that it was Charmed to produce its own lube. Severus turned Remus around, keeping one hand around Remus' waist as the other held his cock in place against Remus' arse. He had a fairly good idea of what indignities DeAnna had subjected Remus to: his cock slid inside Remus' body far too easily to be entirely natural. It was strange and tight and good, and he pushed in as far as he could, not really noticing how still Remus was until he stopped. Remus' head was hanging down; Severus reached up and pushed the fall of Remus' hair back from his forehead. Remus, he noticed, was just as sweat-slick as everyone around him.

"Are you all right?" he asked, mouth against Remus' ear. "Am I hurting you?"

"This is very strange," Remus said, mouth muffled against his arm. "Very, very, very."

_Very strange_ did not mean _stop now_. _Very strange_ might even be a repressed way of saying, _I think I rather like this_, Severus decided. He held Remus' hips still and pulled halfway out, gingerly, then thrust in again. Remus gave up his chant of _very, very_ and whimpered. Severus pulled Remus up so that he was sitting in his lap, Remus' knees just outside his own. He'd watched a couple in the corner fuck like this, before they were joined by what looked like half a Quodpot team and began more complicated acrobatics.

Remus arched and moaned; Severus had to keep a firm hold on him as he moved Remus' hips over his cock.

"Managing all right?" DeAnna asked, and Severus glared. She wore only lacy panties; her breasts pressed softly against Remus' chest as she leant up to look him in the face. She flicked her tongue across Remus' mouth with a devilish look at Severus. "Don't worry, he's completely out of his head," she said, reaching back to run her fingers through Severus' hair.

"'m not," Remus said at the same time as Severus snarled, "He's mine." He moved inside Remus, splayed his hands over Remus' nipples; Remus panted as if he were running.

"Sweet," DeAnna said, and tipped Severus' chin up with a finger. She covered his mouth with her own briefly, and then moved Remus' body, very slightly but in a way that made Remus cry out, hands latching onto Severus' sides as his body became as taut as an elastic about to snap. Severus grabbed Remus' cock and let the thrusts of his hips move his hand up and down. He was vaguely aware that DeAnna had moved away, but he was beyond caring. Remus ground his arse down on Severus' cock and howled as he came. The convulsions around his cock triggered Severus' orgasm and he was flattened by pleasure, as if gravity had trebled.

It took several long deep breaths for Severus to regain control of his body, but he felt vaguely superior to Remus, who was almost completely incapacitated by shudders that swept through his body. Remus twisted around and reached up to Severus as he pulled out carefully. He dropped the condom off the edge of the mattress and let Remus enfold him with shaking arms. They didn't say anything; it was all said in the language of skin against skin.

Severus wasn't aware of sleeping, but each time he opened his eyes different patterns of bodies strobed past. He saw DeAnna once licking someone's cock with her habitual amused look, and once with her panties around her knees and someone sucking _her_ cock. She had looked vulnerable in the same way that Remus did, sometimes, and Severus shut his eyes to give her privacy. When he opened them again, she was gone, and there was only one group still fucking. Everyone else was asleep.

Severus eased himself out from under Remus' dead weight. He wanted a shower, but would settle for a piss. He dressed and stumbled his way out into the hall. There was a definite after-party atmosphere: the driving music on the dance floor had been replaced with something disturbingly like Myrtle and the Magic Mambo Moaners, and the stickiness of the carpet and the grubby walls seemed somehow sad. The bathroom sparkled from the over-application of cleaning spells, and Severus did not want to know why. He washed his face and his hands, slicked his hair back, and went to see if there was any food in the kitchen.

DeAnna was sitting at the battered card table, smoking and reading an Ian Fleming paperback.

"You look like my father," Severus said, surprised into saying the first thing he thought. DeAnna raised one perfectly-plucked eyebrow and adjusted one strap of her sequined halter.

"Please," she said, her voice like dark chocolate, "do introduce me to your father then."

Severus took a glass from the counter and drank half in one gulp; it tasted like nothing, but after a momentary feeling of wrongness, all the colours in the room began to vibrate. "He's a Muggle, I meant. He likes those kinds of things." He waved at the book and the cigarettes. "I imagine if he knew I were here he'd come after me with the dog's chain again."

"Ah. I know the type," DeAnna said. She summoned a dish from the upper shelf. "Have a canape. I imagine you're hungry. Worked up an appetite, didn't you."

Severus took a stack of small sandwiches and sat up on the kitchen counter. It afforded him a good view out the window, over the city's rooftops. Whatever he had drunk made the lights reflecting on the haze look like diamonds in a well.

"Can I ask you — " DeAnna said, then paused to blow a perfect smoke ring. "I probably shouldn't ask, but your boyfriend — is he — ?" She rubbed her hand over her own denim-clad hip. "I saw the scar," she said in apology.

Severus shook his head — he saw rainbows — and ate a sandwich. "Does it matter?" he asked indistinctly.

Something flickered past the window; Severus squinted to look. DeAnna was on her feet immediately, her folding chair collapsing. She stared into the darkness for a long moment, her wand ready at her side, and then she swore.

"Keepers!" she shouted, her voice suddenly lowered with urgency. "Keepers — positions." She grabbed Severus and pulled him after her as she ran for the dance floor. "Hit wizards," she said. "Get out of here. Fabian — " she grabbed a tall redhead from the crowd. "Take the boy." From the kitchen, there came the sound of multiple Apparations.

The redhead took out a knotted handkerchief. The crowd pressed around him as he untied it, revealing a filthy monkey puppet.

"One - two - three," Fabian counted, and as many hands as possible reached for the monkey. Fabian pressed Severus' fingers around one matted leg, and the flat whirled away into sickening darkness.

They arrived in a stumbling, compacted mass in a broom closet — Severus knew this because he had a broom handle stab into his nose painfully when he fell.

"Listen to me," Fabian said, and there was absolute silence. "We have ten, fifteen minutes to get as far from here without magic as possible. We're in the Underground — take any train, change as soon as you can. Take the bus or walk. Do not use magic until you are home or safe. People without clothes, hang back, I'll conjure something. People who left wands behind, let me know, I'll do a remote destruct if I can." There was a sound like thunder. "That's a train — go and good luck."

Severus allowed himself to be swept outside. He distanced himself as soon as possible from the others and boarded. Adrenaline sang through him and gave him the strength to walk slowly, as if he belonged, and to feign sleep in the nearly-empty carriage. He didn't have a ticket and was forced to cast a small Confundus as he exited the ticket barrier. There was a man at the top of the exit stairs whom Severus could have sworn was a plain-clothes Hit Wizard: his clothes looked rather too much as if they had been conjured based on photographs of Woodstock.

"Got any change, brother?" the man asked: his eyes, nearly lost in hair, were sharp.

"Bugger off," Severus said, turning the collar of his shirt up against the rain as he stalked off. He made himself stop in the cafe for a cheap coffee and read the front page of the Prophet. Then he walked the last four blocks home, let himself into the hall, and breathed a sigh of relief. He took the stairs up to his room quickly, wondering what adventures Remus had had on his way home.

Except that Remus wasn't there.

Severus showered and studied and waited. Then he ate lunch and waited. When it had just passed the point where he felt that if he waited any longer he would go quietly mad with frustration, he was summoned to the Warden's office, where he was informed that his roommate was under arrest for gross indecency and crimes against nature.

* * *

Severus debated between the Floo or Apparation and decided that he would be too likely to scatter body parts along the way if he Apparated. He already felt marked by his cowardice: he didn't need to lose an arm to complete his shame. The Warden was surprised that he had to rush off to visit his old schoolmaster, but she sold him three sickles' worth of Floo powder, enough to get there and back again.

Severus stumbled out in the Hog's Head and looked around for Dumbledore. It was Saturday, which meant he would be visiting his brother and the family goats, leaving the school in the hands of his deputy for his day off. Severus spotted the familiar powder-blue robes wafting from the loo, and stalked after the Headmaster.

Dumbledore listened; by the time Severus had to talk about the worst parts, they were alone on the road winding back to Hogwarts. Severus could barely make out the crooked walls of the Shrieking Shack through the trees. He couldn't — _couldn't_ — tell Dumbledore about the sex; it was bad enough to confess that he had been there as well.

Dumbledore had no words of castigation; Severus would have welcomed them. Instead, he patted Severus' arm and talked about trials and a centaur friend of his who was good with the law. It was intolerable.

"What are you going to do?" Dumbledore asked, waving the doors to the school open.

"Get my debts repaid," Severus said coldly; Dumbledore's blue gaze on him was heavy, nearly enough to force Severus' eyes to the floor. He kept his chin up.

"Severus," Dumbledore said, and the unexpected sorrow in his voice made Severus cold. "You might want to give your condolences to Professor Hagrid before you leave. A boy who had been in his House hanged himself in police custody this morning. Thomas Dean was. . . very troubled, but we who remember will miss him."

Severus saw flashes of platinum and gold and blinked hard. He bit back the urge to scream, and instead spun on his heel and stalked off to the dungeons.

* * *

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* * *

Severus was reviewing Amazonian poisons when the bell over the door rattled. He unfolded himself from the chair — how many hours had it been? — and walked barefoot over to open the door.The Warden gave him an inscrutable look; the tall man behind her stared at him, as if attempting to read his mind.

"This is Carlus Lupin," the Warden said. "He's here for his brother's belongings."

"Of course," Severus said, opening the door wide and stepping aside.

"I'll wait for you downstairs," the Warden said.

Carlus summoned Remus' trunk and set it, open, in the centre of the room.

"How is he?" Severus asked, abruptly, and Carlus turned to look at him. He was taller even than Remus; their hair was the same ripe-grain colour but Carlus' was straight and cut even to his chin. Half-brother, Remus had said. They really looked nothing alike.

"Eighteen months," Carlus said, and Severus couldn't help wincing as if he'd been slapped. Carlus summoned the clothes from the wardrobe and set them packing. "He got ten years, which was suspended on account of him being young, except for the one-sixth of him that they said wasn't human, according to Applewick. One-sixth bestiality trumps five-sixths sodomy. So that's that. Hard labour," he added. "Putting in the new trunk line to Cornwall."

"He's good at potions," Severus said inanely, watching Remus' books line up in the trunk.

"He was," Carlus agreed. "Buggered that up, though, didn't he? Poor lad. Poor, stone-stupid lad."

"He'll still be able to sit the examination," Severus insisted, and Carlus put the framed photos from the desk carefully atop Remus' well-mended cloak. He studied Severus as if he were a curiosity.

"You're not glad to be shut of him, then, are you? I thought you might be. . . . It's true, then, what he wrote, that you got along? You were friends?"

"We are friends," Severus said, and Carlus put a hand on Severus' shoulder and squeezed.

"He needs friends," Carlus said, with low intensity. "Friends who don't think of this as some kind of joke. Friends who understand." He flicked his hand and summoned a piece of parchment from Severus' desk. He waved his hand over it, and faint writing appeared. "That's where he's been sent. He'd appreciate an owl every now and then, I think."

"Does it bother you?" Severus asked. He remembered the way Remus spoke about his brother. Remus would not want to disappoint him; he wanted his brother to be proud of him, even though he never said it outright.

"He's in fucking prison, what the hell do you think?" Carlus raked a hand through his hair. "No, I'm not so dense I don't know what you mean. I just don't give a toss. I want. . ." he gave Severus another soul-penetrating stare. "I want him to be happy. He _deserves_ to be happy, to have a little of what you and I take for granted. The gods know he'll never be normal."

Carlus shut the lid of the trunk with a bang, and it bolted itself obediently. He levitated it at waist height and shook Severus' hand. Severus held the door open and watched until the last trace of Remus had bobbed out of sight down the stairs. Then he shut the door, firmly, and stood for a moment in his half-empty room, staring down his own cowardice.

He set the parchment with Remus' address — Remus, he noted again, now had a number — in the far right corner of his desk, and took out a new piece of parchment and an inkpot. He sat and copied the address, carefully, and then paused to think. He dipped the quill in the inkpot again, with deliberate care, and began setting down his words with exquisite slowness. He didn't want the censors to remove even one.

_Lupin:_

  
While I find your present circumstance

(blot; dip; nib to parchment with care to keep his grip light and relaxed)

_regrettable, it is not hopeless, as regards your study. I have discussed matters extensively and thoroughly with our former Potions master, and he has suggested several places that might employ you on his recommendation — provided you attain your PAD._

(blot; blow dry with mouth curled in a tight smile– the sort Remus might have called _cruel_; dip; quill down again, with painfully even pressure)

_Your brother removed your books. I suggest you ask for them, or else it will be doubly hard for you to keep up. I doubt that the amenities in gaol include a Potions laboratory, so you will have to learn the theory perfectly to compensate. It will be a challenge for you, no doubt._

(blot; breathe deeply; look up at the ceiling; dip; hand cramped around quill again)

_You will find attached copies of my notes from the lectures which you have missed so far. Commit these to memory. I will send another letter next week._

_Please let me know if you have any questions. The study of Potions is cumulative: you must have a firm grasp on the fundamentals to understand the more advanced theories._

_I remain_

  
Your (former) roommate,

_Severus Snape_

* * *

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* * *

They don't make it back often, to the looming gates of the iron fence around the prison.These days, most of their work is done by owl-order: independent Potions brewers no longer need to travel a circuit of monthly markets, and certainly _this_ city is one neither cares to revisit unless for pressing business matters. They do not come by train, not ever.

When they do visit, they come to the gates in the evening, when their shadows are long down the street. They leave flowers, white marguerites and lilies. Neither is religious: there are no prayers. Remus always says the same thing to Severus as he kneels to lean the flowers up against the gate:

"There but for the grace of you go I."

Severus always makes the same response. He curls one hand into Remus' hair, greying now, and says nothing; because really, what is there to say?

**the end**

**Author's Note:**

> The story has been edited for content (May 23, 2010).


End file.
